[ale] [OT] Software and file formats for on-line/correspondence chemical education

Jeff Hubbs jhubbslist at att.net
Sat Jan 21 15:26:54 EST 2012


My awesome Physics teacher in high school did conversions to "furlongs 
per fortnight."

On 1/21/12 2:43 PM, Ron Frazier wrote:
> I was once teaching a basic math class at DeVry.  I spent most of a
> class period and filled up two white boards doing this exact type of
> conversions.  My hypothetical question to the class was, how many dollar
> bills (assuming 6" long) would it take to reach end to end to and from
> the moon if the moon is 100,000 mi. away (I don't really know how far
> away the moon is).  It was quite interesting, and the example, which I
> made up on the spur of the moment, turned out to be a bit harder and
> longer to solve that I thought.  However, I think I made my point of how
> critical it is to keep track of all the units at each point and write
> your ratios in the right order, so if you need inches / ft., you don't
> write ft. / inch.  We finally got the answer, using no automated
> conversions on the calculator at all.  I was rather proud of the
> example, but I think the students were glad when the bell rang.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
> On 1/21/2012 10:37 AM, Tom Freeman wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> To continue with a sequence of conversions:
>>                       _75.2 in_ = _?_ cm_
>> convert in ->   cm      1 in       2.54 cm  ===>   191.008 cm
>>
>>                       _191.008_cm   = _?_m_
>> convert cm ->   m      100 cm         1 m   ===>   1.91008 m
>>
>>                       _1.91008_m_  = _?_Km_
>> convert m ->   Km      1000 m        1 Km   ===>   0.00191008 Km
>>
>>



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